Billy Summers

‘Did you make that up about me being a bad man, too?’

She doesn’t drop her eyes. ‘No. He said it.’

‘You wrote what you wished had happened,’ Bucky says. ‘The hero of the story walks away into the future toting his suitcase. Now tell me what really did happen.’

So she does.

2

They drive back to Riverhead, stopping on the way for Band-Aids, a roll of gauze, tape, hydrogen peroxide, and Betadine ointment. Alice goes into the Walgreens while Billy waits in the car. At the hotel they enter by the side door. Once they’re in his room, she helps him off with the bomber jacket. There’s a hole in it, and another in his shirt. Not a rip but a hole, and not in the side, as he told her. Farther in.

‘Oh my God,’ Alice says. Her voice is muffled because her hand is over her mouth. ‘That’s not a graze, that’s your stomach.’

‘I guess it is. Or maybe a little lower?’ He sounds bemused.

‘In the bathroom,’ Alice says. ‘If you don’t want to leave a lot of blood around.’

But once they’re in there and she helps him get his shirt off, she sees there is almost no blood coming from the red-black hole. She’s able to cover it with one of the Band-Aids after she’s used the hydrogen peroxide and a little Betadine.

She has to help him back to the bed. He’s walking slowly and listing to the right. His face is sheened with sweat. ‘Marge,’ he says. ‘Fucking Marge.’

He sits down but gasps when his body bends. Alice asks him how bad it hurts.

‘Not too bad.’

‘Are you lying?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Well, a little.’

She touches his stomach to the right of the hole and he gasps again. ‘Don’t.’

‘We have to get you to a hos.’ She stops. ‘We can’t, can we? It’s a gunshot wound and they have to report those.’

‘You’re turning outlaw on me,’ he says, and grins. ‘You really are.’

Alice shakes her head. ‘I just watch too much television.’

‘I’ll be okay. I saw worse in Iraq and guys were back clearing blocks the next day.’

Alice shakes her head. ‘You’re bleeding inside. Aren’t you? And the bullet’s still in there.’

Billy doesn’t reply. She stares at the Band-Aid. It looks stupid. Like something you’d put on a scrape.

‘Try to lie still tonight. On your back. Do you want Tylenol? I’ve got some in my purse.’

‘If Tylenol’s what you’ve got, I’ll take it.’

She gives him two and helps him to sit up so he can take them with water. He coughs, cupping his hand over his mouth. She grabs the hand and looks at it. There’s no blood in the palm. Maybe that’s good. Maybe it isn’t. She doesn’t know.

‘Thank you.’

‘No thanks needed. I’d do anything for you, Billy.’

He presses his lips together. ‘We need to get out of here in the morning. Early.’

‘Billy, we can’t—’

‘What we can’t do is stay here.’

‘I’ll call Bucky. He’s got connections. One of them might be a doctor in New York who can treat a gunshot wound.’

Billy shakes his head. ‘That could happen in a TV show. Not in real life. Bucky’s not that kind of fixer. But if we make it back to Sidewinder, to gun country, he’ll be able to find somebody.’

‘That’s almost two thousand miles! I googled it!’

Billy nods. ‘You’ll have to do some of the driving, maybe even most of it, and we need to make it as fast as we can. If there’s a snowstorm, God help us.’

‘Two thousand miles!’ It feels like a weight on her shoulders.

‘There might be a way to speed the plow.’

‘Speed the—’

‘It’s the name of a play. Never mind.’ Grimacing, he reaches into his back pocket, brings out his wallet, and hands it to her. ‘Find my ATM card. There’s a machine on the mezzanine level. My passcode in, 1055. Can you remember that?’

‘Yes.’

‘The machine will let you take four hundred dollars. Tomorrow morning, before we leave, you can get another four hundred.’

‘Why so much?’

‘Never mind now. What I’m thinking of may not work anyway, but let’s be optimists. Find the card.’

She thumbs through his wallet and finds it. The embossed name is Dalton Curtis Smith. She holds it up, eyebrows raised.

‘Go, girl.’

The girl goes. The mezzanine level is deserted. Muzak plays softly. Alice puts in the plastic and punches the code. She half expects the machine to eat the card, maybe even start sounding an alarm, but it pops back out and the money does, too. All twenties, fresh and uncreased. She folds them and puts the wad in her purse. When she comes back to Billy’s room, he’s lying down.

‘How is it?’ she asks.

‘Not terrible. I was able to go to the bathroom and take a leak. No blood. Maybe the bullet being in there is good. It might be stopping up the bleeding.’

This sounds unlikely to Alice, like her grandmother saying a little cigarette smoke blown into an aching ear would quiet the pain, but she doesn’t say so. She roots in her purse instead and comes out with her bottle of Tylenol. ‘How about another one of these?’

‘God, yes.’

She gets him a glass of water in the bathroom and when she comes back he’s sitting up with his hand pressed to his side. He takes the pill and lies down again, wincing.

‘I’m going to stay with you. Don’t even think about arguing with me.’